Library Automation System Research Articles

The Attributes of Electronic Service Quality (e-SQ) among Academic Librarians

This paper examines the level of electronic service quality (e-SQ) attributes among academic librarians in the Malaysian public universities which have an established automated library system. Six attributes of the e-SQ were determined from the analysis of related e-SQ theories. The 162 academic librarians respondents involved in this study were from nine public universities in West Malaysia. The findings of the research indicate that all the attributes have high level of mean, of which the two highest attribute are Reliability and Security. Thus, the research shows that the academic librarians of the Malaysian public universities are aware of the importance of e-SQ in their job since the overall attributes at the high level.

The Application of RFID Technology in the University Library

This paper opens with an introduction of RFID technology and its application in libraries at home and abroad, discusses the advantages of RFID technology in the university library applications, and analyzes the problems of RFID technology in the university library applications from the aspects of technical standards, operating frequency, application costs, and management of the library automation system integrated and compatible hardware and software update service and safety aspects.

An open source library system and public library users: Finding and using library collections

Large scale open-source library automation systems can increase efficiencies in bibliographic production. The implementation of such a system, Evergreen, was examined in order to ascertain whether it facilitated detection and use of library collections in Indiana public libraries. Three hundred forty-nine participants recruited from nine public libraries completed user surveys. Additionally, library server data about interlibrary loan (ILL) statistics were collected from participating libraries on a monthly basis. The self-reported user survey included questions about patron history at local public libraries, use of the previous Online Public Access Catalogs (OPACs), and use of the Evergreen OPAC for finding and accessing multiple library collections since library users could directly request interlibrary loans via the Evergreen OPAC. The findings indicate that the implementation of the Indiana Evergreen system received moderately positive ratings from the participants; the positive evaluation was primarily related to the use of the ILL function. The ILL service satisfied the participants' needs and motivated them to use the Evergreen OPAC. Benefits for Evergreen users were confirmed.

Library automation with Koha

PurposeLibraries in Nigeria have had to face several challenges and constraints in the development of library automation systems. These challenges include poor information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure, poor funding, and poor ICT skills among library staff, as well as choosing appropriate software solutions. The introduction of open source software such as Koha is therefore a positive revolution in Libraries across Nigeria. The purpose of this paper is to make a strong case for the adoption of open source software in various libraries and information centres.Design/methodology/approachThis paper discusses Adeyemi College of Education Library automation processes using the Koha Library Management Software. It highlights the strategy adopted, major automation areas, and various factors to be considered by librarians when developing automation processes for their libraries.FindingsThis paper shows that automation can improve the library's relevance to the academic community. It further reveals that library staff enjoy working in an automated environment and the patrons enjoy services rendered using an OPAC instead of a card catalogue.Practical implicationsLibrary automation will address the problem of manual processing of materials. It will further mean less drudgery, easy generation of records, space conservation, improvement of information services, and easy retrievals.Originality/valueThe major obstacle to library automation in Nigeria has been poor funding. This paper is an eye opener. Libraries now have the opportunities to use open source software instead of waiting to acquire software that costs so much and may discourage management from granting the request.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: Trials and Triumphs of Implementing the Ex Libris Primo Discovery Service in a Small Regional Consortium

This article presents a case study of the NC-PALS (North Carolina-Piedmont Automated Library System, Inc.) consortium's selection and implementation of the Ex Libris Primo Central discovery service, with the purpose of highlighting considerations, challenges, and concerns presented by our experiences. This case study may help inform planning and implementation of similar discovery services in small- and medium-sized libraries or consortia. Following a review of the literature on user behaviors and Web-scale discovery services, this study offers a detailed description of NC-PALS's experiences selecting and implementing Primo, giving attention to trials and triumphs along the way and identifying ongoing challenges that may hold significance for future implementations.

Gilbert J. Clausman, AHIP, FMLA, 1921–2011

Gilbert J. Clausman, AHIP, FMLA, 1921–2011

Public Librarians with the Highest Retention Rate are More Likely to Choose their Entire Career Path in Public Libraries

Public Librarians with the Highest Retention Rate are More Likely to Choose their Entire Career Path in Public Libraries

System migration from Horizon to Symphony at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals

Highlights difficulties and problems in library automation systems migration faced by libraries in the Middle East due to the lack of direct support from their ILS’s parent companies. Local vendors lack the required expertise and resources to provide the level of support enjoyed by North American and European user libraries of such systems. In this context, the article presents the experiences of the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) Library in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, in system migration from the SirsiDynix integrated library system, Horizon, to the same company’s newer system, Symphony, which readers may find somewhat different from those of western libraries in terms of planning, execution and time span of the project. A brief 30-year history of library automation at KFUPM is also provided.

Editorial: Information technology for development

In this issue we continue the series of articles on information technology for development (ICTD) which began with the paper by Rebecca Sears and Michael Crandall in IFLA Journal Vol. 36, No. 1, March 2010. In the first of two new articles on this topic, ‘Bringing the benefits of information technology to underserved populations: An introduction to ICTD for the library community’, Christopher T. Coward of the University of Washington Information School in the USA points out that, while organizations and innovations in the ICTD community have much to offer libraries, ICTD has grown largely outside the purview of public libraries. The aim of his article is to introduce the defining features, tenets, and focus areas of ICTD, and to provide examples of how partnering with ICTD could benefit libraries. The article concludes with a discussion of the overlap with telecenters, with its attendant opportunities and risks, and other suggestions for libraries when partnering with ICTD. The second paper on the subject of ICTD, ‘Symbiotic partnerships: The global library community and the ICTD stakeholders’, is by Fay A. Austin of Rutgers University Libraries, also in the USA. The author notes that, while it may appear redundant to promote collaboration between those working in the field of information and communications technologies and librarians dedicated to providing access to information for all, the role of library and information professionals in providing access to information, in communicating the advantages of the new technologies and in educating the user population in their use was not recognized in the call to action issued by the signatories to the Millennium Development Goals. Information professionals therefore need to educate ICTD stakeholders about the expertise and experience available in the global library community. From general discussions of information and development, we turn next to a consideration of an aspect of information work in a specific developing country, and one which does not involve information and communication technologies. In ‘Main factors affecting the preservation of Chinese paper documents: A review and recommendations’, Liu Jiazhen and Wang Jingxuan of Wuhan University in China demonstrate that the priorities for the preservation of Chinese documents are protecting the documents against air pollution and controlling pests and insects. The paper proposes the creation of favourable microenvironments for decreasing the acidification of papers and the adoption of various measures for controlling pests and insects. The next paper takes us to a different region of the world. In ‘Arab online book clubs: A survey’, Amany M. Elsayed of Helwan University in Egypt reports on a study of the current situation of seven Arab online book clubs – five from Saudi Arabia and two from Egypt – and gives a comparative account of their performance. Despite low participation and superficial discussion, and lack of services provided to readers, Arab online book clubs are becoming a promising environment for promoting reading, and motivate people from all ages to contribute and exchange ideas because the clubs have the primary objective of promoting and enhancing reading. Young Arab readers have begun to discuss books in online groups, and to establish their own online clubs that work apart from librarians and publishers in Arab countries. The author provides recommendations for the improvement of Arab online book clubs. We remain in the Arab world with the final paper in this issue,’System Migration from Horizon to Symphony at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals’, by Zahiruddin Khurshid and Saleh A. Al-Baridi. The paper highlights the difficulties and problems in library automation systems migration faced by libraries in the Middle East due to the lack of direct support from the systems’ parent companies. Local vendors lack the required expertise and resources I F L A

A study Analyzing the Career Path of Librarians

This study aims to identify the career movement patterns of librarians, analyze factors influencing their career movements, and compare differences in such factors between librarians and chief librarians. Findings showed that the jobs with the highest retention rate were those in public libraries, that library automation system developers showed the highest rate of career movement, and that school library and the public library librarians had the highest rate of returning to the career and selecting the first career as the last one, respectively.

Computer self-efficacy as predictor of librarians' perceived ease of use of automated library systems in Nigerian university libraries

Purpose—The paper seeks to examine computer self-efficacy as predictor of librarians' perceived ease of use of automated library systems in Nigerian university libraries. Design/methodology/approach — The paper uses the ex-post-facto design type of a survey approach to determine self-efficacy as predictor of the librarians' perceived ease of use of the automated library systems. Findings—The investigation shows that majority of the respondents were fairly or moderately self-efficacious about computer use. Also, there was a significant positive relationship between computer self-efficacy and perceived ease of use of computer-based libraries by the library staff. This was inspite of their moderate level of computer self-efficacy. However, the moderate level of the staffs computer self-efficacy is one major setback arising from the study. Practical implications—Generally, librarians, IT researchers, university management, system administrators will find this paper beneficial to them. This is because it educates them about the fact that the library staffs moderate level of computer self-efficacy does not completely discourage them from using automated systems. This is because of their imperativeness when compared with the manual systems. Originality/value— Not much has been done in Nigeria to explore the relationship between computer self-efficacy and use of information system; this paper contributes towards filling that gap thereby adding to the literature in the area.Keywords Computers, self-efficacy, librarians, university libraries, Nigeria, use of automated systems.

Making the Distributed Library Automation System for Third Generation in New Century

Making the Distributed Library Automation System for Third Generation in New Century

Evaluating the X-Lib Library Automation System at Babcock University, Nigeria: A case study

The objective of this article is to evaluate the potential of the X-Lib Library Automation System in Nigerian university libraries through an assessment of how it meets the current and future requirements of Babcock University Library. The current and future potential of X-Lib in Babcock University Library were examined using the R2ISC criteria. The criteria used to evaluate current potential included: the ability of Xlib to accommodate a large collection; ability to integrate the basic operations of acquisitions, cataloguing, and circulation; modular design; ease of use; ability to search and retrieve records by various fields; ability to produce end user reports; ability to define security or restrict users to specific screens; ability to perform specialized services; and backup and restore utility. The criteria analysed to determine future potential included: response time; level of configurability; operating system; upgrade; hardware; and the future of the developer or vendor. The result showed 62.6 and 45.5 percentage fits respectively to the current and future requirements of the Babcock University Library. The strengths and limitations of X-Lib are highlighted.

ABCD, an automated library system based on WinISIS

This paper describes the structure and potential of a system for the automation of on-line electronic and traditional libraries, using the WinISIS DBMS for processing of textual information.

Performance Evaluation of the INNOPAC Library System in Southern Africa: perspectives from systems librarians

There is a growing interest in the INNOPAC library automation system, which has been implemented by several libraries in the Southern African region over the past 10 years. The majority of these libraries have installed this library system through consortia membership, and others have done it individually. This article evaluates the performance of the INNOPAC library system in five libraries in the Southern African region using the performance criteria of Functionality, Usability, Support and Training, and Vendor. The article identifies the strengths and weaknesses of the system, and makes recommendations for implementation in other similar libraries in the region. It also outlines a proposal for an INNOPAC-based consortium for the Southern African region.

Enhancing Circulation Services Using E-mail for Alerts and Reminders

The success of information service is more likely to be achieved by adjusting the services to meet specific needs of an individual rather than trying to adapt the individual user to match the output of the information system. This paper provides an insight into the e-services implemented by the Information Centre and Library (IC&L) at Defence Institute of Advanced Technology DIAT (DU), Pune, keeping in view the users’ requirements and their valuable suggestions. Paper also discusses the techniques and tools applied in further simplifying the functioning of the circulation module and ensuring smooth communication between the staff and the users in an otherwise automated library system. http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/djlit.29.258

The Integrated Library System: From Daring to Dinosaur?

ABSTRACT The automated library system (ALS) has undergone significant changes since its inception in the 1970s. It is no longer simply a database to house and retrieve a library's holdings. It has become an integrated library system (ILS) comprised of robust clusters of systems involving every process and module related to libraries. The Internet, open source, the increase in electronic resources, and the rising expectations of library users are changing the nature of the ILS. Library vendors are at times struggling to keep up with the demand for new services while providing support for existing services. This article details the evolving role of the ILS and discusses where it could and should be headed.

Library Automation Projects In Nigerian Private Universities: The Case Of Igbinedion University, Okada

Igbinedion University, Okada is the first licensed private university in Nigeria. It was born out of the dream of Chief (Sir) Dr. Gabriel Osawaru Igbinedion, the Esama of Benin kingdom, to bequeath to future generations of Nigerians, university education of international standard, where academic calendar is fully run without interruption. Efforts by the University library to fit into the world of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) was met by a lot of challenges, the greatest of which is unavailability of fund. This paper reported the automation effort of Igbinedion university library, Okada, highlighting the various challenges that impede on the actualization of a full automated library system. Among the challenges identified are: Unavailability of fund, erratic power supply, inadequate professional librarians to execute the project, lack of Local Area Network (LAN), choice of software and absence of Maintenance and Support Agreement. Recommendations that will enable the library overcome the challenges were made. It is concluded that, library automation at Igbinedion University library, Okada, is still in its infancy. The University management should as a matter of urgency provide fund to compliment the effort of Chief Achike Udenwa for a full automated library system to be in place. Keywords: Library Automation; Igbinedion University, Okada; Automated Library System The Information Technologist Vol. 5 (2) 2008: pp. 19-23

Comparing Catalogs

Evaluative and comparative studies of catalog data have tended to focus on methods that are labor intensive, demand expertise, and can examine only a limited number of records. This study explores an alternative approach to gathering and analyzing catalog data, focusing on the currency and consistency of controlled headings. The resulting data provide insight into libraries' use of changed headings and their success in maintaining currency and consistency, and the systems needed to support the current pace of heading changes. ********** Much of the work of technical services takes place out of public view. Perhaps this explains in part why measures of technical services' contribution to the library are relatively lacking in compendiums of library measures. The number of volumes and subscriptions in a collection, the rate at which electronic resources are accessed, circulations and reference interviews--all of these are frequently cited as measures of academic libraries' performance, but rarely is the work contributed directly by technical services used as a library's performance measure. For some in technical services, there might seem to be an advantage to being under the radar when internal or library-to-library comparisons are done; but the lack of measures can also leave any operation unsure of its own success and of the validity of any local or shared set of norms. Having practicable methods of determining a technical services unit's success in meeting its goals and of assessing that accomplishment in relation to that of peer institutions can help technical services units build confidence in their goals, identify systemic problems, and contribute to library planning and priority setting. The study presented here seeks to define and test an approach to measuring one of the contributions of technical services: the use of consistent and up-to-date headings in the library catalog. Methods of Measuring Catalog Data Quality One obvious component of library service is the product of technical services efforts: the data in the library catalog. The catalog assists users with finding known items in the collection; browsing the collection by subject, author, and title headings; browsing the result sets of keyword searches; examining and selecting items via their surrogate records; and locating the items desired. These basic services are provided through a wide variety of interfaces and displays. Vendors and designers of automated library systems offer a range of interface choices to their customers, and each library tailors its system's functionality and presentation for its users. Comparative evaluation of the differences between such varied interface options would inevitably be complex and highly subjective. In their review of the literature on quality in cataloging, Myall and Chambers note the difficulty and rarity of high-level evaluation of the catalog: Quality of the overall catalog appears to be less frequently the subject of study, ... notwithstanding the fact that both Cutter's objects and much of FRBR's approach are focused on the catalog as a whole rather than on individual records. Presumably, the limited extent of study at this level is due to the complexity and multi-faceted nature of the task, which now must include not only content and structure of the database, but also completeness and presentation of data on various screens, search engine execution, presence of context-sensitive help, and other elements in an environment in which users are familiar with many other Web-based information tools. (1) Nevertheless, behind the variable screens of automated system interfaces, the data records that feed catalog indexes and displays are highly standardized. The widespread adoption of a core set of data standards by the U.S. academic cataloging community--the Machine-Readable Cataloging (MARC) 21 formats for mark up; the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd ed. …

The Role of the National Library of Korea in the Competitiveness Enhancement of Libraries

The paper describes projects initiated by the National Library of Korea (NLK) with the aim of improving the nation's information competitiveness. The Library set up a library automation team in 1979, working for library automation in Korea generally as well as in the NLK. Firstly, the NLK developed an automation system for the national bibliography, which was collected and catalogued by the NLK. Secondly, the NLK developed the Korean Library Automation System (KOLAS), which has been distributed to both public libraries and government libraries throughout the entire nation. The system enables individual libraries to establish their own databases by downloading the national bibliographic database without performing original cataloguing locally. The NLK has provided libraries with the national bibliographic database on magnetic tapes, CD-ROMs, and online, according to changes in the technology environment. The NLK next developed a cost-effective resource sharing network system by launching the National Electronic Library in collaboration with major Korean libraries. This resource sharing system allows users to access library materials in cyberspace without visiting a specific library. The NLK has also been establishing a contents database for publications published in Korea. As of 2006, the NLK is planning to select outstanding materials from its legal deposit collection and provide links to the selected materials on the official NLK website, helping public libraries to select valuable works from legal deposit publications. With a library management information system introduced in 2005, the NLK can make decisions on open access stock for each reading room after analysing statistical reports for both open and closed stacks. Until now, the collections have been shelved by the year of publication. The library management information system will help library patrons use the library collection more conveniently and will be distributed to public libraries nationwide.